Lloyds boss 'a winner' who deserves pay and pension deal

Lloyds Banking Group's pay chief has said "people like winner" while defending the package earned by the lender's chief executive.

Stauart Sinclair, who chairs the pay committee at Lloyds, told MPs on the Work & Pensions Committee that staff at the bank did not resent Antonio Horta-Osorio's arrangements.

They saw him pick up last year a £6.27m pay package and included a slashed pension contribution of 33% - down from an original 46%.

That compared to an average worker's salary above £30,000 and pension contribution of 13% at the bank.

Lloyds returned to private hands in 2017 - almost nine years after its taxpayer bailout at the height of the financial crisis.

Mr Horta-Osorio took over in 2011 and has been credited with driving its recovery.

Mr Sinclair denied any suggestion of a rift with staff over pay when he told the MPs: "When I go out to see people who are on £22,000, £30,000, £40,000, they see Antonio as a winner, because he brought this bank back from the brink."

He added: "People regard that as a big achievement and there's a charisma around Antonio which actually means a lot of people say 'good luck to him - he works incredibly hard and I don't resent the money'."

But MP Frank Field, who chairs the committee, hit back saying Mr Horta-Osorio "certainly is a winner".

He asked the chief executive: "How do you justify your greed?"

Mr Horta-Osorio responded: "It's very difficult to accept the word 'greed' that you used ... when my total fixed compensation, at £2.8 something million... is lower than the group chief executive of HSBC.

"I strongly believe... there is in the market a remuneration value in the market for each position."

But he also confirmed that when he cut his pension contribution to 33% in February, he was awarded an extra £150,000 in fixed share awards over five years in what has been slammed as a stealth pay rise to offset the reduction.